PETER SAGAL, HOST:
We want to remind everybody they can join us most weeks right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium here in Chicago, Ill. For tickets and more information go to wbez.org. Or you can find a link at our website. That's waitwait.npr.org. Right now, panel, time for you to answer some questions about this week's news.
Faith, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's contentious relationship with journalists, well, it started a long time ago. In fact, in college, he wrote an angry letter to his college newspaper after they referred to him as what in print?
FAITH SALIE: (Laughter) Oh, well, I feel like I need some backstory. Where did he go to college?
SAGAL: He went to Connecticut College.
SALIE: And so it's a small enough college where they...
SAGAL: Knew him.
SALIE: They knew him.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Did they refer to him as - is this - am I looking for an adjective or a noun?
SAGAL: You're looking for a noun.
SALIE: And is...
SAGAL: I'll give you hint...
SALIE: Is it a word I can say on National Public Radio?
SAGAL: Oh, yes. Barely, but yes.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
SAGAL: It did seem in college, even then, as now, he always did seem tightly clenched.
MO ROCCA: Right. Right.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: You're sitting right on it, on the answer.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: It's - think of his last name. You're sitting right on it.
SALIE: A chair.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: It's like...
ROBERTS: It starts...
SAGAL: Mo, I'm going to let...
ROCCA: You're closer.
ROBERTS: It starts with S, right?
SAGAL: Yeah, it starts with S.
SALIE: An S.
ROCCA: Think of that, like, Egyptian oracle thing that will tell you...
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: A sphincter?
ROCCA: Yes.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL, LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Ladies and gentlemen...
ROCCA: Password on NPR.
SALIE: Thank you, Mo.
SAGAL: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what the ancients called the riddle of the sphincter.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yes, they called him Sean Sphincter. That made him mad.
ROCCA: She - Faith and I are very tight. That's how we knew that.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: So we were - of course, we work off of each other well.
SAGAL: Yeah. The paper, the failing Connecticut College Voice said the...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It was an unintentional misprint, which Sean Sphincter disagreed angrily. Most distressingly, President Trump responded to the controversy by saying that when it comes to sphincter, the news is fake but the leaks are real.
(LAUGHTER, SOUNDBITE OF CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL SONG, "LOOKIN' OUT MY BACK DOOR")
SAGAL: Coming up, our panelists take their lies into their own hands. It's our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.